Archives

July, 2005

• American Indian regulations get OK

  COLUMBIA - American Indian entities planning to file for state recognition might have to accept new guidelines next year after revisions to current regulations were approved Friday.

• More smoke and mirrors for Indian people
  read the Rapid City Journal article about the opening of the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians in Rapid City, S.D. with keen interest. The article states that the office will provide services to Indian beneficiaries, including information about their trust assets. Is this more smoke and mirrors designed to mislead Indian people?

• Debate about Kennewick man now with lawmakers
  WASHINGTON -- Though his 9,300-year-old remains rest in a Seattle museum, Kennewick Man is at the center of a debate 3,000 miles away over a two-word amendment to a Senate bill that has sparked sharp controversy between the nation's Indian tribes and parts of the scientific community.

• Survivor of Red Lake shootings looking forward to school
  MINNEAPOLIS - One of the most seriously wounded survivors of the Red Lake school shootings says he's looking forward to returning to school this fall. "Oh yeah. Get some more chicks," Steve Cobenais said in an interview aired on WCCO-TV on Wednesday night.

• North Dakota Hospital adds room for Indians
  Sherman Iron Shield used to sneak his son behind some elevators at St. Alexius Medical Center to burn sacred herbs, hoping to chase away evil spirits without setting off fire alarms and sprinklers.
   
• Lakota family [passes on hoop traditions to children
  A pounding Lakota drum calls middle school students into a complex hoop dance they've practiced this week to present to the public.
  "Keep it going, keep it going," Dallas Chief Eagle says over the sound of a boom box, encouraging students who weave their bodies in and out of hoops. Their performance is scheduled for 10 a.m. today at the Multi-Cultural Center.
   
• Accountability and sovereignty in American Indian education
  In the 1830s, after being expelled from the southeastern United States, the Five Civilized Tribes established an educational system that was the envy of every civilized state. School systems of the Five Civilized Tribes demanded accountability from students, teachers, parents and tribal educational officers.
   
• Trimble: What did Crazy Horse look like?
  There has always been controversy in historical and academic circles over whether there is, or ever was, a photograph of Crazy Horse. Even on the Internet an argument raged as to the authenticity of a photo put forth by academic activist Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado and proclaimed the real thing.
   
• Ancient prophecy is modern reality
  Christians don't have a monopoly on prophecies that tell of an ''end of times'' or an end of an ''era.'' Many tribal nations, significantly the Hopi and the Haudenosaunee, but including many others such as Cree and Lakota in the North and Maya, Lokono and Maquiritari in the South, have prophecies within their spiritual traditions that describe an ''end of times,'' an era very similar to our present times and depicting or describing prophetic signs apparent to those who watch for such things.
   
• Surviving termination: The Eastern Pequots, then and now
  After the Pequot War of 1637, our people were separated into two distinct groups: the Eastern Pequot and the Western Pequot (Mashantucket). The colony and state of Connecticut defined a distinct status for the Eastern Pequot as a tribe of Indians when the colony established a land base for our people in 1683, and that status has existed to the present without interruption. There has been implicit in this status the recognition of a distinct political body.
   
• Fort Apache nails $12 million for renovation
  (ARIZONA) -- The White Mountain Apache Reservation offers fishing, hiking, camping and rafting. It also has the Hon-dah Casino, Sunrise Park Ski Resort and Kinishba Ruin.

• Choctaw Indians: From social reality to legal fiction
  The fortunes of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are well documented and marketed to the general public. They are a testament to overcoming racism and prospering against overwhelming odds. Even so, their leadership, federally recognized tribes in their region and their lobbyist colleagues have left one clear victim while pursuing their economic ventures.

• RCMP ignored 911 call before woman's slaying
  A woman slain in the northern Alberta town of High Prairie telephoned 911 for help, but the RCMP did not respond to the emergency call, CBC News has learned.
   
• Red Lake Indian Reservation youth look to future
  RED LAKE, MINN. -- Before last spring's shootings at Red Lake High School, Tim Sumner was already on a mission to empower and encourage Ojibwe youth on the Red Lake Indian Reservation who might lead the tribe into the future. He canvassed the area, talking to young tribal members about what they wanted and what they needed.

• McCain tells Indians in suit to tone down rhetoric
  WASHINGTON - Arizona Sen. John McCain on Tuesday chided the American Indian plaintiffs in a 9-year-old lawsuit against the Interior Department for comparing his proposal to settle the case to a ''massacre.''
   
• Cayuga Casino proposal suffers setback
  ALBANY -- The federal government won't recognize the recently elected Cayuga Nation government, dealing a blow to the Catskills casino company that helped underwrite the election.
   
• Partnership reverses economic trend
  KYLE — In the late 1800s, the vast Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was home to the last wars between American Indians and the U.S. Cavalry. In the 1970s, it experienced clashes between federal agents and the American Indian Movement.

• Science and religion: Scopes to Kennewick

  This time the issue is whether to preserve the right of science to discern the stories of the earliest Americans or to accede to beliefs of some Native American tribes that all ancient remains belong to them — even when there is no provable connection.

• Red Lake kids form youth council to improve life on reservation
  (MINNESOTA) -- Some of the Red Lake Indian Reservation's brightest young people are coming together to do what they can to tackle the tribe's problems.

• Run supports Sacred Sites
  (NEW MEXICO) -- The Dineh Bidziil Coalition, comprised of 23 Navajo organizations, is collaborating with several tribal and other organizations to bring the "Abalone Mountain Run: Journey to Protect Sacred Sites" from Albuquerque to Flagstaff.

   

• Nenana conference takes on suicide and prevention
  (ALASKA) -- People are meeting in Nenana this week to explore solutions to an epidemic of self-inflicted deaths that has long plagued Alaska's smallest communities.

• Uranium to be mined at Crownpoint, Church Rock
  (NEW MEXICO) -- A Nuclear Regulatory Commission judge has endorsed a mining company’s plan to extract uranium near two Navajo Nation communities in northwestern New Mexico.

• Documentary tells Blackfeet version of deadly Lewis & Clark encounter
  At first the Blackfeet Indians paid little attention to the Lewis and Clark expedition. In the economics of the time, the white men carried little of interest to the tribe.
   
• Federal judge rules: More evidence allowed
  KENT, Conn. - The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation has won a round in its battle for federal acknowledgement. U.S. District Court Judge Peter Dorsey has ruled that the tribe may submit new evidence to the BIA about tribal marriage rates during the first half of the 19th century to prove the tribe's continuous community and political authority while the agency prepares its reconsidered final decision. The BIA's January 2004 decision to grant the Schaghticoke federal acknowledgement was vacated in May by the Interior Board of Indian Appeals on appeal by the state, and remanded back to the BIA for reconsideration.
   
• South Dakota ordered to rewrite redistricting law
  PIERRE, S.D. - A panel of three federal judges ruled that South Dakota again was in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the decision will almost ensure that American Indian voters on the Yankton Reservation will have a say in drawing new voter district boundaries. A unanimous decision by the judges issued an injunction against the state of South Dakota, saying it must comply with the federal Voting Rights Act and submit the new law for review by the Department of Justice. 
   
• Leupp Navajos protest C-aquifer water slurry deal
  WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - A plan being negotiated behind closed doors, which would allow Peabody Coal Company to continue its coal slurry line operation to the Mohave Generating Station by using C-aquifer water rather than N-aquifer water, brought protesters to the Navajo Nation Council from the Leupp area, where Navajos already have to haul water to survive. ''Ninety-five percent of the Navajos in Leupp do not have running water; they have to haul their water,'' said Anna Frazier of Leupp, member of Dine' Citizens Against Ruining our Environment.
   
• Study begins on Kennewick Man
  SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A team of scientists began tests on the skeletal remains known as Kennewick Man on July 6. The nearly 10,000-year-old skeleton is currently housed at the University of Washington in Seattle. The scientists were acting on a federal court decision in 2002, backed up by a federal appeals court last year, that allowed them to commence work on the ancient remains. Attorney Alan Schneider, who represented the scientists, said the tests were to determine a ''baseline'' of information and would not be immediately conducting tests using chemicals on the remains
   
• Navajo grandmother defies odds for youth center
  CHINLE, Ariz. - When Marjorie Thomas began her 12th Annual Walk-a-Thon from Chinle to Window Rock to raise funds for a Navajo youth center, she defied age, ill health and heat to raise funds for the dreamed-of center in the heart of the Navajo Nation. A trip to the hospital almost ended this year's 80-mile journey prematurely and her dream of a center. Thomas arrived at the finish line in a wheelchair, assisted by Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr.
   
• Navajo's protest energy exploitation at council
  WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Navajos arrived by horseback and on foot at the tribal capitol to protest the use of Navajo water for coal slurry in Arizona, a plan to build a new power plant in New Mexico, and extensive pollution from oil and gas wells, coal mines and power plants throughout the Navajo Nation. As the Navajo Nation Council began its summer session, Navajos from the most remote areas of the Navajo Nation - who haul water long distances and live with the effects of polluted air, land and water - protested plans for more lease agreements with energy companies.
   
• Indian census data available online
  view all of the Native American households in ... Here's another source on Indian ancestry, of particular ... Daniel P. Strouthes, who was studying land tenure systems ..

• Indian students learning to lead their reservations
  PALA INDIAN RESERVATION ---- American Indian students are being prepped this summer to be the next generation of reservation leaders. Twenty-three high school and undergraduate students from throughout the Southwest have gathered in San Diego to participate in a tribal-run and supported project called Young Native Scholars.
   
• Honoring Po'Pay's legacy
  SANTA FE, N.M. - The year 2005 is quickly becoming the ''Year of Po'pay.'' The leader of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is the subject of a new book, ''Po'pay: Leader of the First American Revolution,'' written by Pueblo members and leaders, while a marble tribute will soon honor Po'pay in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington
   
• Leonard Peltier's appeal rejected
  FARGO, N.D. - A federal judge has rejected an appeal by imprisoned American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, who said the government did not have the right to sentence him for killing two federal agents in 1975.
   
• Pine Ridge helping ease outsourcing quirks
  KYLE, S.D. - In the late 1800s, this vast Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was home to the last wars between American Indians and the U.S. Cavalry.
   
• Troubling chapter in bald eagle success story
  SITKA, Alaska -- A smile crinkled Steve Johnson's face as he opened the express-mail package on his desk. The box was big enough to hold a new computer, but it was lined with insulation -- and what Johnson extracted, frozen solid in separate plastic bags, were the body, talons, wings, and head of a bald eagle. A separate bag held several tail feathers.
   

• Crackdown planned on fake Indian art
  By JAMES W. BROSNAN. WASHINGTON - An effort is under way in Congress to help stop the sale of fake American Indian arts and crafts.

• Can you hear me now?
  The political oppression and assassination of Native American tribes in ... draw local - let alone national - attention to the issue of American Indian sovereignty ...

• Arizona tribes seek security funding
  Arizona tribes, which say they are not getting their fair share of homeland-security funding, want the money sent to them directly from the federal government rather than funneled through state officials.
   
• Urbanization's effects on tribalism
  Contrary to popular belief, American Indians have lived in cities for hundreds of years. Archaeology confirms that Native people of the area now called the United States often lived in concentrated populations, cities and urban centers long before the arrival of Europeans.

• Oneida Nation work on pact  
  The Oneida tribe already has negotiated agreements with the villages of Ashwaubenon and Hobart, the city of Green Bay and most recently the town of Oneida. Now the tribe is meeting with Brown County, and officials expect to have something in place before budget talks begin in November. The tribe also is negotiating with Outagamie County.
   
• Historic apology to First Nation
  Descendants of an American fur trader who burned down an Aboriginal village on the West Coast of Vancouver Island more than 200 years ago have returned to make a formal apology.

• Boston center resists relocation
  BOSTON - The word ''relocation'' resonates badly for American Indians and Alaska Natives. For several years, the possibility of having to relocate from its state-owned property hovered over the North American Indian Center of Boston like the sword over the head of the Indian depicted on the Great Seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
   
• The challenges of education
  SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Since the late 19th century, American Indians have been migrating to urban areas. Some were lured by the false promises of the federal urban relocation programs while others went on their own, seeking economic opportunities away from their tribal bases.
   
• Reuniting families in Denver
  DENVER - With the relocation and migration of American Indians to cities, maintaining strong Indian families has become a challenge. One Indian organization in Denver is focused on healing and uniting families.

• Apache television reporter creates online youth magazine
  When television news reporter Mary Kim Titla, San Carlos Apache, began surfing the Web for sites to inspire Indian youths, including her three sons, she found a void. With deadlines always looming in the fast pace of television news, Titla created a Web magazine for Native youths that she hopes will not only inspire, but provide role models and give a lift to the downhearted.

• Former Kickapoo exec draws 15 years
  The former director of the Kickapoo Indian health care program was sentenced Monday to 15 years in federal prison for scheming to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tribe.

• Fighting violence against women
  One in four women nationwide will experience at least one physical assault by a partner, one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped

   

• FBI compiles files on rights, anti-war groups
  said The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other US news media. ... National Convention in New York City, and a group called the American Indian Group in ..

   
• Red Lake tribal chairman is confident son will be cleared
  (MINNESOTA) -- Red Lake tribal Chairman Floyd (Buck) Jourdain Jr. walked into a locked and guarded courtroom Monday morning for what likely was a hearing key to his son's fate: whether the teenager should be tried as an adult in the Red Lake school shootings case.

• Mystery of Ancient “Kennewick Man” Deepens
  (WASHINGTON) -- Last year, scientists at the Burke Museum in Washington State won the right to examine the bones that have resided there since 1998. Recently they began tests to unravel the truth about this ancient mystery man.

• Three wildfires threaten sacred sites
  HESPERUS, Colo. (AP) - Crews gained the upper hand on two fires in southwestern Colorado Monday as a fast moving fire nearby threatened American Indian archaeological sites in the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park. The Dwelling Fire reportedly doubled from 150 acres to 300 acres in an hour Monday evening. It had a high potential for growth, said Larry Helmerick, a spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center.
   
• Off-rez majority works to strengthen position
  PORTLAND, Ore. - It might not be cool, but it's a reality. For the first time in history, more than half the population of American Indians and Alaska Natives reside off-reservation in urban and suburban areas. According to ''Native American at the New Millenium,'' a report by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, ''despite the federal government's promises for improved livelihoods, the urbanization of American Indians has not been easy.''
   
• Tribes lobby to end land dispute
  The Navajo-Hopi Land Commission spent this week in Washington, D.C. lobbying against a proposal by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to end a more than 120-year-old dispute. The Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Amendments of 2005 would end the federally funded relocation of Navajos living in a disputed area of Arizona in Sept. 2008 and effectively settle the contested territory.
   
• Discrimination in Montana still exists
  The story about Havre detailed how patrons at one bar harassed four Native Americans until they left. It quoted the bartender on how to tell a "good" Indian from a "bad" one. And it included comments from a clothing store clerk on how she watches Indians more closely to avoid theft.
   
• Changing mascot names waste of time
  You had two guys putting up $1 million each if Marquette would go back to the Warriors instead of the goofy-sounding "Golden Eagles". Then they changed it to the Marquette Gold, which no one liked either, and then after an extensive vote they went with: the Marquette Golden Eagles. Same name...no change.
   
• Redistricting the right way
  South Dakota lawmakers have decided not to reconfigure boundaries for two legislative districts that a federal judge ruled was a violation of American Indians' voting rights. U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier said the Legislature's redistricting plan following the 2000 Census was unfair to Indians.

• A new urban society
  SEATTLE - American Indians have always been migratory, but the shift of the American Indian population away from tribal lands in recent years is unprecedented, said the National Urban Indian Family Coalition. Creating a movement to give voice to the new majority, the coalition is sharing expertise and success models across the country, from Minneapolis and Denver to Oakland and Anchorage. ''Historically, American Indian centers have worked in isolation from one another,'' said Janeen Comenote, coordinator for the coalition based in Seattle
   
• Bittersweet experiences foster cultural renaissance
  NEW YORK - Stereotypes of Indians as hunters on the Plains and in the forests don't leave room for those who dwell in cities and suburbs, but far more American Indians live in urban areas than on reservations. The experience has not been altogether a happy one. Many urban Indians were forced to move by government relocation programs, and suffered sudden disruption of their culture and the social ills that followed. But this too is a stereotype
   
• Off-rez majority works to strengthen position
  PORTLAND, Ore. - It might not be cool, but it's a reality. For the first time in history, more than half the population of American Indians and Alaska Natives reside off-reservation in urban and suburban areas. According to ''Native American at the New Millenium,'' a report by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, ''despite the federal government's promises for improved livelihoods, the urbanization of American Indians has not been easy.'' Between 1952 and 1972 over 100,000 reservation residents went through the BIA's relocation program and resettled in metropolitan areas.
   
• Judge said Interior neglected trust responsibility
  WASHINGTON - In a written opinion that may contain the strongest criticism yet against the Department of Interior, Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Department of Interior to admit to Individual Indian Money trust account holders that Interior accounting may be unreliable. Lamberth issued the memorandum opinion and order in response to the motion by plaintiffs in Cobell vs. Norton that asked the court to require the government to admit an inability or a refusal to discharge federal fiduciary duties

• Hopis, Navajo look to future without Mohave
  FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The Mohave Generating Station - from which both the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation derive significant income - may be in serious trouble. The plant's majority owner, Southern California Edison, filed its monthly report on Mohave with the California Public Utilities Commission updating progress on coal and water negotiations, C-aquifer studies, and an alternatives investigation. The 35-year-old 1,580 megawatt coal-fired plant, one of the biggest air pollution emitters in the country, uses Navajo and Hopi coal mined on Black Mesa by Peabody Coal
   
• The American Indian rural - urban continuum
  American Indians have been ''urban'' for a long time. The oldest, settled communities in North America are the large southwestern villages of the Pueblo peoples. There was also, of course, Tenochtitlan in central Mexico, larger than most European cities of its time; there was Tikal in Central America; and on the high Andes, there was Cuzco and other great cities of the Incan country of Tewantinsuyo.

• Indians, feds still worlds apart on settlement amount
  WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee says Congress may well settle the nearly decade-old lawsuit in which American Indians accuse the Interior Department of cheating them out of billions of dollars in royalties.
   
• Repatriation expert sues museum
  descendants, Indian tribes and native Hawaiian organizations to ... including chairman of the Education Department, head ... by the Association of American Museums as ...

• A peek into the Pueblo way of life
  SANTA FE, N.M. – Travelers who venture out of the New Mexican cities of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, or Taos enjoy what many refer to as "Indian time," a sense that community and the cycle of seasons and life are more important than the incessant ticking away of seconds, minutes, and hours.
   
• Nickname controversy follows teams
  Miami of Ohio's nickname dilemma was one that had confronted universities throughout the nation.
  In the mid-1990s, the school was at a crossroads. Many Native American groups objected to the school's moniker of Redskins. The reason was obvious. The term was a slur when it first came into existence two centuries ago, something originated by white people who paid bounties for the scalps of Indians

• Crew's discovery spurs an archaeological hunt 6-14-05
  (CALIFORNIA) -- An archaeological treasure hunt began Wednesday near the San Fernando Mission after crews building an animal shelter discovered what could be the 200-year-old remnants of an American Indian home.

• La Jolla tribe gets approval for Palomar Mountain bottled-water project 6-14-05
  In a blow to residents concerned about drought and fire, the federal government has approved the La Jolla Indian band's plans to develop a commercial bottled-water project on Palomar Mountain in North County.

• Lawmakers want to ensure Indian tribe is recognized as authentic 6-14-05
  (NEW JERSEY) -- The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Indians of New Jersey have found a "champion" for their cause in Assemblyman Doug Fisher.

• MASCOT: Nickname controversy follows teams 6-14-05
  Miami of Ohio's nickname dilemma was one that had confronted universities throughout the nation.

• Red Lake waits for word on major federal funding requests 6-14-05
  Leaders of the Red Lake Indian Reservation are waiting for word from the federal government on the status of some major funding requests. In the wake of the school shootings at Red Lake, the tribe was asked to compile a list of short and long term needs. The list included costs associated with the shootings, as well as long needed infrastructure repairs.
   
• American Indian dolls to help reservation teachers  6-14-05
  Well-Known Child is dressed in traditional Crow clothing down to her small beaded purse.
  Her red dress covered with tiny simulated elk teeth, the blue scarf circling her neck, the single feather decorating her hair and her beaded belt, buckskin leggings and moccasins are all miniature renditions of what a Crow woman might wear to a powwow or Crow Fair.
   
• Hard work paid off for Crow Creek Tribal School  6-14-05
  The school has been in trouble since it lost its dorm to a fire last spring. Since then, it's worked hard through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, state government and contractors to replace the dorm and kitchen - all the while hoping for funds down the road for a permanent solution, as well as a replacement for the school's gym, which has been condemned.
   
• McCain; US may settle Indian trust case 6-13-05
  The chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee said Congress may settle the nearly decade-old lawsuit in which American Indians accuse the Interior Department of cheating them out of billions of dollars in royalties.

• AZ archeologists find Hohokam Canals 6-13-05
  Archaeologists working at a proposed development site in Mesa say they have unearthed one of the largest integrated canal systems the Hohokam Indians ever built in the Phoenix area.
   
• Unwanted patrols add to uncertainty in Southwest 6-13-05
  YUMA, Ariz. - The Cocopah Tribe informed the Yuma Patriots, volunteer border patrols, that the Cocopah are a sovereign nation and the Yuma Patriots are not welcome on tribal land near the border of Mexico. When the Yuma Patriots said they would forge ahead, disregard the tribe's instruction to stay off tribal land.....
   
• Lawsuit filed to halt Peaks desecration  6-13-05
  FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The Navajo Nation, Yavapai-Apache Nation and the White Mountain Apache Tribe joined environmentalists and filed a lawsuit in federal court in Phoenix, seeking an injunction to halt proposed snowmaking from wastewater on sacred San Francisco Peaks.

• UKB councilors discuss banishing Chad Smith from their tribe 6-13-05
  (OKLAHOMA) -- United Keetoowah Band councilors discussed Saturday the possibility of banishing Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith from their tribe

• Legacy of Acoma Pueblo 6-13-05
  The legacy of Acoma Pueblo is one of survival and reverence for the sacredness of life and land, C. Maurus Chino told participants at the recent Huaba Hanu Listening Conference in Albuquerque.
   
• Shiprock poet makes her mark 6-13-05
  Josephine Pioche, 15, of Hogback and a student at Shiprock High School, discovered that when she submitted her original poem, “Facing Your Fears,” to an international competition and wound up being selected as one of 36 winners who earned a trip to Washington, D.C. for an International Society of Poetry Symposium.
   
• Supervisors review Chumash annex plan 6-13-05
  In closed session today, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is expected to review the Santa Ynez band of Chumash Indians' pending request to annex 6.9 acres off Highway 246, which would take the property off the county's tax rolls and put it outside the county's land-use planning rules.

• UKB councilors discuss banishing Chad Smith from their tribe
  (OKLAHOMA) -- United Keetoowah Band councilors discussed Saturday the possibility of banishing Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith from their tribe

• Lawsuit filed to halt Peaks desecration
  FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The Navajo Nation, Yavapai-Apache Nation and the White Mountain Apache Tribe joined environmentalists and filed a lawsuit in federal court in Phoenix, seeking an injunction to halt proposed snowmaking from wastewater on sacred San Francisco Peaks.
   
• South Dakota can change voting districts
  The South Dakota Legislature must make a decision to open a special legislative session to redraw voting district lines to comply with a federal court order. The state is in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as ruled by U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier, and has been instructed to redraw its district lines. District 27 was found to be packed with American Indian voters thus allowing only one Senate seat and one legislative seat.
   
• Rosebud hog farm back in court
  It was thought a settlement between the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the owners of a major hog farming operation would have settled the long-standing controversial project, but a new legal challenge is underway. A complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. asks that the latest settlement agreement be declared invalid and for the court to order a new environmental assessment.
   
• Traditional games uphold nations' cultures
  GREAT FALLS, Mont. - Shinney, lacrosse, ring the stick, arrow throw, run and scream; they're all part of American Indian history, games played long before basketball was invented. All these and more were played during a recent gathering in Great Falls.
   
• 56th Annual Navajo Festival July 30th - 31st
  Where: Flagstaff, AZ -- Artists, musicians, dancers, and food preparers will gather at the Museum of Northern Arizona's 56th Annual Navajo Festival of Arts and Culture on Saturday and Sunday, July 30 and 31 to share in the weekend's grand offering of Diné traditions. The central philosophy in Diné life is hozho, meaning everything the Navajo thinks of as good-harmony, beauty, blessedness, and balance.
   
• Scientists detail study of Kennewick Man
  SEATTLE - Cloistered around padded tables, scientists from around the country have been peering through microscopes and measuring bone fragments trying to unearth the history of an ancient skeleton found along the Columbia River.
   
• Pine Ridge planning reservation bus service
  PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. - Instead of walking along the road, hitchhiking or catching a ride with friends or family, residents of this vast reservation should be able to take the bus by next year.
  The Oglala Sioux Tribe has secured funding to start a public transportation system that will serve villages in an area that encompasses two of the nation's poorest counties
   
• National Indian housing summit planned
  The Department of Housing and Urban Development has set its first national American Indian housing summit in four years.
  The ''2005 National Indian Housing Summit: Sharing Successes and Innovative Approaches'' is set for Sept. 19 - 22 at John Ascuaga's Nugget Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nev.

• Rain, cultural issues might explain drop in Devils Tower climbs
   Fewer climbers scaled Devils Tower this June than last June, when climbing is discouraged because of
  American Indian religious observances.

• Schaghticokes may get another chance to prove their recognition ..
  The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, in a surprising reversal, now wants to allow the Kent-based
  Schaghticokes to submit new evidence on Indian-to-Indian

• Navajo family mournes loss of soldier
  SHIPROCK — Family, friends and community members gathered Wednesday night at the Shiprock Chapter House to honor and remember a fallen soldier killed Tuesday in Iraq.

• One nations leader may be kicked out of Cherokee tribe
  The head of the anti-tribal sovereignty group One Nation may no longer be able to say she is a member of a tribe. And that tribe she claims to be a part is not even legitimate, others say.
   
• Body found in Afghanistan may be Navajo soldier
  The remains of soldier recently recovered in Afghanistan may be that of a Navajo lance corporal, according to the office of the Navajo Nation President.

• Udall bill seeks small business development aid for Indian country
  (NEW MEXICO) -- U.S. Representative Tom Udall, D-N.M., is seeking to expand and improve small business development assistance to American Indians by introducing new legislation in Congress.

• Prosecutor files rare reservation extradition request
  (SOUTH DAKOTA) -- Fall River State's Attorney Lance Russell wants to extradite suspects in an attempted murder and assault case from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, but whether that happens will likely be up to tribal president Cecilia Fire Thunder, and extradition from a reservation is rare.

   
• Investigation targets crime on reservation
  (WISCONSIN) -- A three-year investigation into crime on the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian reservation resulted in more than 50 prosecutions.

   
• Triumph and tragedy marked Jim Thorpe's life
  (WASHINGTON, DC) -- King Gustav V of Sweden: "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world." Jim Thorpe (reportedly): "Thanks, king." Ninety-three years after this singular exchange July?15, 1912, at the closing ceremonies of the Stockholm Olympics, no athlete has emerged as Jim Thorpe's equal

• Progress steady at Crow Creek
  The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is responsible for the school operated by the tribe through a contract, promised $900,000 toward a new dorm more than a .

• Kennewick Man will let his bones do the talking
  the Corps planned to hand them over to local Indian tribes for burial. A federal law designed to stop the desecration of Native American graves requires that

• American Indian program aims to preserve Navajo language
  She helps 250 area American Indian children learn the Navajo language, traditions and culture, from pronunciation of the vowels to the ceremonies.
   
• Schools to teach about Indian culture
  Native American culture and history will be integrated with social studies and art under a plan being developed by the Marysville School District

• Oneida Co. presses for foreclosure on Nation
  Oneida County officials intend foreclosure on Oneida Indian Nation-owned properties despite a federal court injunction against Madison County doing the same.

   
• Oneida Indian Nation gets temporary injunction in tax case
  A federal judge has granted the Oneida Indian Nation a preliminary injunction in its tax case. That means Madison County must stop foreclosure proceedings against the tribe.

• Ancient 'footprints' found in Mexico
  (MEXICO) -- Researchers think they may have found footprints in southern Mexico that mark the oldest evidence for the presence of humans in the Americas.

• Udall bill seeks small business development aid for Indian country
  (NEW MEXICO) -- U.S. Representative Tom Udall, D-N.M., is seeking to expand and improve small business development assistance to American Indians by introducing new legislation in Congress.